


Illusory

by Natterina



Series: The Lost Chronicles [1]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Literal Deus ex Machina, Not all in the simulations are simulations, Romance, Sarcasm, Torment of Hades
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26903215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natterina/pseuds/Natterina
Summary: Ikaros hones in on the Isu as Hades cocks his head at Kassandra, and confirms what she already knows: the blood rushes hot and loud through the veins of the so-called God of the Underworld, and he is no more a part of this simulation than she is.
Relationships: Hades/Kassandra (Assassin's Creed)
Series: The Lost Chronicles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2002333
Comments: 7
Kudos: 31





	Illusory

**Author's Note:**

> I started this a couple years ago because I genuinely thought that the Torment of Hades DLC was leading up to a reveal that Hades was not part of the simulation, and then when Judgement of Atlantis came out I really disagreed with how they got rid of Hades. Most of this was written before JoA came out but I've cleaned it up a bit and posted as there's so very little Hades/Kassandra. I was very much wanting to write a Good Omens style 'Bitchy Kassandra and Hades through the next 2400 years' and this was mostly written to act as a backdrop for that.
> 
> Side note: there isn't a lot of explanation for why/how Hades is in there (perhaps the helmet is similar to the staff in extending life and ensuring no need for sustenance!) - I'd counted on Ubisoft answering that question before they offed him in JoA, but fortunately Hades as a greek god is literally the perfect deus ex machina, so he's in there because he can be and it's best to not question the gods!

“When did you even last go visit your wife? She has enough fields of asphodel to cover Kephalonia twice over.” Kassandra feels funny talking about the marriage of two gods, the discussion making her stomach twist in unfamiliar knots, all over a gods-be-damned flower. She twirls the flower around her fingers for effect, the force barely making the petals twitch, before she pauses. "Keep me out of your marital affairs. The flower goes to the sick woman.”

Hades’ surprise lasts only a moment before he allows frustration to take over him, looming in close to Kassandra in a way designed purely to unsettle her.

"My hounds will get their meal."

It is easy to remember that this is all a simulation, that everyone in these worlds aren’t real. Persephone's lips on her cheek feel no different to a wisp of cool air, Adonis' handshake a firm but not quite real grasp, like trying to tense in a dream. She has become used to it, to the way the water of the Styx does not cling to her clothing, or the way the dust never really makes her feel dirty. Even Cerberos had felt unreal, dangerous but reacting in a pattern rather than reacting to her. These recreations are terrifyingly real and more than capable of hurting and killing her, but none of them are filled with the warmth of life.

But as Hades hisses those words at her, his hand snapping out to grab her wrist and yank her closer, Kassandra nearly drops the pretty little flower on the floor. The lazy exhalation of his breath blows warm across her collar bones, and beneath the almost bruising grip of his fingers she can feel the faint, steady beat of a pulse.

Her horror must splay across her face, for Hades releases the grip on her wrist at the same moment that she takes a step back.

“You… you’re real.”

There is a moment when the mask falls, a thousand emotions flickering across his face at once. There is dismay, disdain, frustration, but also something that looks suspiciously like _relief_. He looks as though he is rapidly thinking something over, and Kassandra takes the opportunity his distraction gives her to reach out and press her fingers into the exposed crook of his elbow, expecting it to feel hollow and cool, flat and textureless like the rest of them.

It is not. Beneath her fingertips is warm, clammy flesh and blood, with the distinctive bump of the vein at the thinnest part of the skin. It feels exactly as it should, like any human’s would. Hades pulls his arm out of her grasp almost as quickly as she grabs it, but it’s too late. She _knows_.

Ikaros hones in on the Isu as Hades cocks his head at her, and confirms what she already knows: the blood rushes hot and loud through the veins of the so-called God of the Underworld, and he is no more a part of this simulation than she is.

Disbelief forces a feeling of nausea to take over her stomach, as Kassandra tries to reconcile the absurdity of it with the sheer impossibility of it. It is a feeling she has had before, staring down at the Labyrinth and the pathetic rotting thread, hearing the roar of a creature that _should not_ exist rebound off the walls. The horror and the dread had been real then, but worse was the sickening feeling that the world had spun on an axis, that the monster thousands of mothers scared their children with was alive and real and _she_ would have to face it.

It is the same feeling now, that of the world no longer being right. She does not know what to say and, for once it seems, neither does Hades. His gaze is sharp, eyes narrowed, but he appears to have come to a decision of his own. His grip is firm, but not harsh, when he grabs her by the upper arm.

“Come with me, _now_.”

* * *

“You don’t have to _drag_ me. If everyone here isn’t real, you don’t need private conversations.” Kassandra is standing before Hades as he smirks down at her from the throne, and she almost wants to smack it right off his face. Preferably with her axe. Probably the sharp end.

“Maybe I simply wanted to get you alone.” Somehow, he seems to know exactly what to say to wind her up the most, and Kassandra has to refrain from grinding her back teeth in annoyance. “It is oh so very lonely here, after all.”

 _Definitely_ the sharp end.

Hades accompanies his words with a look that immediately heats her blood, but Kassandra will _not_ let him steer this conversation.

“How old _are_ you?”

For a moment there is only silence, as Hades sits lazily on his throne and idly inspects a carving on the wood. Kassandra watches him with her arms crossed, and is suddenly struck by the realisation that this man is immature beyond anything she’s ever encountered before. Oh, there is a presence to him, no doubt about that, something in the way he speaks and carries himself that she is finding increasingly difficult to resist, but by the gods is he _petty_.

As if able to hear every thought in her mind, Hades tilts his head at her, that damned smirk lifting his lips again. “I don’t recall.”

Kassandra is briefly stunned.

“You _don’t recall_.”

His red eyes glint like steel as they focus on her, and the smirk turns bitter.

“Apologies, Keeper, I lost track after the first several thousand years.”

Fair enough, she thinks, unable to even comprehend how much the world would have changed in that length of time. For him to have been stuck here for far longer than that, Kassandra supposes she can almost understand why he acts as he does.

“Then why are you here? What made you _choose_ to come here?”

He shrugs, but Kassandra recognises the gesture for what it is: he really, _really_ does not want to answer that. “The world was burning. I wanted to live. I thought to myself, yes, seventy-three thousand years from now I will cherish the opportunity to be interrogated by an aggravating little human.” His smile is little more than a baring of his teeth.

Unconsciously, she takes a step back. Not because she finds him threatening, or out of offence at being described as aggravating, but at the implication he has lived for such an impossibly long time. If she found it a struggle to imagine living for several thousand, then seventy thousand is far beyond her imagination. Still, her voice is almost soft when she responds to him, as the irrational part of her wants to try to understand him.

“Why here? Does it look anything like your real underworld?”

If there is a tumult of emotions crossing his heart at that question, he does not show it. Instead, Hades' gaze turns distant, remembering a city full of life, cleverly designed by himself as a marvel of underground architecture. It had not been as idyllic as Poseidon’s Atlantis, with far less stringent rules, but it had been _his_. Of course, if he’d known the humans would take the memory of it and warp it into a myth based on it being a miserable place where he’d imprisoned his wife, he’d have just built the fucking place in a valley.

Maybe the same one where Persephone had started to build Elysium, just to be petty.

But still, Hades remembers it fondly, and will not lie. “No, Keeper. It does not.”

“Well, what _did_ it look like?” She is curious, wondering what on earth it could have looked like. Kassandra has already seen so many impossible things but, unfortunately for her, Hades is no longer in the mood for talk.

“Unlike anything your little brain could ever envision.”

* * *

The next time Kassandra strides into the palace, an argument ready on her tongue, she finds herself stopping short the moment she comes into view of Hades.

He’s not sitting on his throne this time, instead he’s surveying some minor damage on one of the columns that Kassandra half-guiltily thinks might have been caused by some over-enthusiastic swinging of her axe. That’s not what stops her, though.

His helmet hangs off one of the posts on the back of the throne, haphazardly dumped there along with the chest plate of his armour. His hair is still mussed from the helmet, and she notices that the colour of it is uncommon, neither black nor darkened grey. The lack of the helmet only outlines the sharpness of his face, the long nose and the distinctive cut of his jaw. Combined with it all is the fact that his _chitoniskos_ is thin, meaning Kassandra can see the winding pattern of the glowing white lines on his skin, can see their outline where they twist under the fabric of his shirt and work their way down his spine and across his shoulders.

The whole view is a painfully handsome one, and she won’t even bother denying that. She’d have to be blind without a brain not to find the sight attractive and, judging by the way his lips turn up into a smirk before he’s even turned to look at her, Hades damn well knows it.

There is a tension in the air between them, evident even when he has sought _her_ out over the last few days of her work in the Underworld. Their conversations have been snarky and unusually aggressive on her end, and Hades has noticed her inability to really _look_ at him.

The way she stares now confirms his suspicions.

He is standing before her quicker than she can blink, and that heavy blanket of tension settles between them in an instant. Somehow he has made himself appear smaller in the half second it takes to stand near her, and that makes him even _more_ imposing. At a taller height he had merely been intimidating, but standing so close to her when he is only a few inches taller than her is somehow _worse_. His arm brushes her own as he circles around her, and she struggles to put out of her mind the thought that his face is really not too far away from her own. Kassandra crosses her arms and rolls her eyes, determined to hide.

“Ah, so it _is_ like that.”

“And so what if it is? Somehow I doubt I’m the first. Surely you don’t think me stupid enough to act on it.”

“You don’t have to resist.” His smirk returns, as Kassandra becomes aware of the heat of his body so close to her own. “Whatever happens here is between us alone, Keeper.”

It is tempting, oh so tempting when he is so close to her that all it would take is a single touch, the flick of her hand to take his own. It has been a _long_ time since she left her last bedmate, and opportunities are _scarce_ with two brothers on her ship, and the promise of privacy is almost enough to overcome the occasional urge she has to throttle the man before her.

As frustrating as Hades can be, she knows there must be more beneath it, hidden behind the deflection and the biting sarcasm. But then again, perhaps there isn’t anything at all, and so long trapped in this place has merely worsened characteristics that were always infuriating.

Kassandra breathes in deeply, ready to exhale in a sigh, but instead she breathes in _him_ , the scent of mint and something else she cannot figure out.

She meets his gaze, her brows slightly narrowed, but her words surprise him.

“I don’t kiss. Not on the mouth.”

She could kiss the smirk off his lips though, she thinks privately.

“Not a problem.”

In a moment the world narrows down to four walls in a surprisingly tastefully decorated bedroom, the architecture and furnishings so unlike anything Kassandra has ever seen that it is practically alien. It is sleek and dark, with no red or gold in sight, and she wonders if this is perhaps more reflective of his true personality.

She has little time to reflect on that thought further, as warm lips begin to kiss a trail of fire down the column of her throat, and the metal of the unusual bed frame is cool against the back of her calves. Hades’ hand reaches for the buckles of her armour clasps with the ease of a man who has been carefully noting their placement, and Kassandra has little more coherent thoughts as she is pressed down, _down_ into the mattress.

* * *

For the first time in years, somewhere between Kassandra laying back to catch her breath and trying hard _not_ to enjoy the smell of Hades all around her and _on_ her, she falls asleep in the aftermath and stays through until her body wakes her again hours later. The bed is cool and empty and has been for hours, but that bothers her little, and she would rather avoid any awkward talk.

Of course, when she next walks into the throne room of the palace to find Hades smirking at her, it is hard to refrain from reaching for her axe.

* * *

Kassandra watches Brasidas walk away, his head held high, looking for all the world as though they haven’t just condemned him to an eternity in the Underworld.

For a brief moment, Kassandra had been certain that Hades was about to cut the illusion short, when she had spoken of his honour. But his eyes had lit up when she had told Brasidas to work to right his wrongs, though the look of disgust soon returns upon the arrival of Poseidon. They banter, Hades pocketing a coin that never falls into his pocket, and Kassandra turns to him once the brother is gone.

“Why do you react to him, if he isn’t real?” In truth, she still cannot process how this place has been built, or how the people within cannot be real, but she tries not to think too hard on it lest she go mad.

Hades shrugs.

“It’s hard to wrap your mortal mind around. Everyone here is a computer-created intelligence that is designed to react to any life inside the simulation. Most importantly, it was to react to you. _They_ think they truly exist.” Indeed, Hades had spent far too many years contemplating his own existence here, at one point almost convinced that he was part of the simulation himself, that he was nothing more than a rogue virtual intelligence who gained sentience. Almost hilarious, he thinks, that three fingers pressed into the crook of his elbow and the sharp hearing of an eagle condemned that fear to the shadows.

But none of Hades’ words mean anything to Kassandra, nor do they help her understand. How could Aletheia know so many details of Brasidas and his life? Was it coincidence that this Brasidas was so similar to the real one.

“Did he really do those things?” She doesn’t need to mention what exactly, for they’re both too aware of Brasidas’ crimes. The sight of the little urn, standing lonely on the altar, is burned into her skull. Hades’ grip tightens on his axe as he sighs, and Kassandra startles when she realises that it’s the first human sound she’s heard from him.

“Aletheia uncovered her knowledge from a device that allowed her to acquire knowledge of your life and the lives of those around you, which she used to make all of this… convincing.” He gestures around them with a lazy wave of his hand, before he continues. “I would be surprised if he had _not_ butchered that village.” His words are harsh despite the conscious attempt to soften the blow, but Kassandra feels them like a physical impact right in the centre of her chest.

“Ah.” She is quiet for a moment, her mind a storm of thoughts. Brasidas had been the most honest man she had ever known, the only one she had genuinely trusted and who had worn that righteousness like an armour, showing the world his kindness and good-character. She could trust him with her life, and his friendship and loyalty never wavered, his honour never compromised.

And yet. A babe never to take its first breath, a woman so consumed with grief so as to impale herself on her dead husband’s sword like a pitiful Deianeira, a farmer forced to be a soldier whose life is cut short at the sharp end of Brasidas’ blade as his village burns behind him.

There had never really been a choice, and she is somewhat offended that Poseidon had betted on her sending Brasidas to Elysium.

“You knew he’d stay here.” There’s a pause, as Hades seems to know she is not finished. “You knew I’d never think sending him to Elysium was an option.” It’s almost a question, and Hades takes a step closer to her with his head cocked to the side, as if surveying her.

“I had a feeling. Want to know a fate worse than death? An eternity without _toys_.”

He leaves her then, alone on the bluff, thinking about his words. She may have ignored them completely had she not figured out what was going on, may not have realised that they were as good an admission of boredom than anything else that left his mouth.

Still, as infuriating as he can be, she joins him in his bed when the Underworld comes as close to night as it can. Again, she is surprised that she stays through it.

* * *

Kassandra returns to his bed several more times as her list of tasks dwindles ever down. Though heated in the moment, they don’t speak of it, their daily interactions seemingly a constant battle of snark and sarcasm, biting remarks that sometimes infuriate her and sometimes test her ability to hold back a bark of laughter.

There is danger, she thinks, in spending so much time with one man: Kassandra almost never returns to the same bed twice, but there is something about him that lures her back. She knows his type, intimately knows that feelings can form quickly for a man like this, who verbally spars her in the throne room but fucks her exactly as she wants, exactly as she _needs_. So Kassandra holds back, allows him to kiss no higher than the column of her throat, and tries her damnedest to fall asleep immediately to avoid any post-sex talk.

And then one time, the last time, after he has wiped them both clean with a cloth softer than anything she’s ever seen, to her surprise he returns to the bed and falls asleep with little more than a few lines of conversation. Granted, he is on his side and turned away from her, but it stirs up something in her stomach that feels a little funny, and Kassandra spends most of the hours following staring at the table by the bed and refusing to let the soft breathing lull her to sleep.

But soon all the pieces are in place, four guardians at four gates, and all that there is left to do is return to Hades to complete their deal. A tiny part of her doesn’t want to and, if she were to be honest, if Hades had only been residing in Elysium, she might have genuinely struggled to come to terms with doing so.

But he is not, and the Underworld remains a miserable land of smoke and grime, and Kassandra has little choice.

So to the gates she goes.

* * *

“We had a deal!” And a stupid fucking deal it was as well: had Kassandra known Hades was not a true part of the simulation, she never would have made it. By the gods, why had _he_ made it? What joy did he get from playing along with Aletheia’s plans? Why not just tell her the truth from the get-go? If she had not figured it out, would he still be waxing sad lines about Persephone and insisting on her helping the souls trapped down here?

“You were never in a position to bargain with me.” Hades stands at that, so close to her that she feels the heat from his body, and she has to crane her head to look at him because she absolutely _will not_ back away. “Your life was mine the _moment_ you willingly walked into this simulation. I needed you to grow accustomed.”

“Accustomed to _what_? Living here in this miserable representation of your realm, as you have for the last _fuck_ knows how long?” Hades tries to take a step towards her, but Kassandra stands firm, digging her heels into the ground as she refuses to move a single iota. Instead, Hades steps back and leans lazily against his throne, one arm slung across the back of it.

“Oh, did I not mention? I have a fifth gate, and you’re going to spend the rest of eternity guarding it!”

Kassandra wants to take the stupid crown from his head and beat him with it.

“You don’t fucking _have_ a fifth gate! You don’t have _any!_ This whole place isn’t fucking real, and we both know it! Why the _fuck_ are you trying to keep me here?” Her words are a storm of fury, and she just barely manages to dodge the throne that he _throws_ at her. But both of them know the answer to that question: he doesn’t want her to leave. Whether it is because he has truly come to see her as anything more than an irritating human who occasionally shares his bed, or simply because he no longer wants to be alone, it does not matter. Her time here is up.

Hades removes his axe at the same moment Kassandra takes hold of hers, and it’s the hardest fight she’s ever had in this place.

* * *

“You act like any of this matters, but you’re a prisoner wherever you are." Hades punctuates the bitter words with a pained swing of his axe, exposing the endless horizon for the clever computer image that it really is. “As long as you carry that staff, you will _beg_ to be freed of it. Believe me, _I know._ ” Those last words are a snarl, his teeth bared as his lips lift in utter disgust. Kassandra sees right through it, aware he is only half referring to her, that the rest of his anger is likely at himself for getting stuck here in the first place. 

“You don’t have to stay here, Hades.” She wants to offer a hand to help him to his feet, but he uses the staff as an aid to stand up instead as her words register with him. He only laughs at her then, that twisted smirk on his lips, and his free hand clutching at his ribs. His eyes are on the floor as he laughs, but when they return to Kassandra he is furious at the guilt in her eyes.

“Oh, but I do. You and I still have roles to play.”

But here and now, those intense red eyes almost black with desire, scares her more than anything she thinks she has ever seen in her life. It causes her heart to pound in her chest and her breath to catch in her throat, and she is all too aware that this is probably the most honest he has been with her.

The decision to tilt her head slightly is almost too easy, but Hades takes it for the invitation that it is.

His lips are warm, but the kiss is furious and desperate, his hands trying to grab hold of _anything_ on her armour that he can grip onto. He half walks her backwards, but there is no column here for him to press her up against, nothing but his own grip to steady her in place. Heat pools in her stomach when his hand moves up to the back of her neck, tilting her head back further to easily deepen the kiss. Kassandra is not one to stand by and let herself be so taken over by a kiss, but _this_ is beyond anything she has ever felt, passion and desire _for her_ managing to undo a man who insists on appearing as though nothing phases him.

Hades pulls away only slightly, his breathing ragged, and when Kassandra dares to open her eyes she finally sees something other than the arrogant mask. His eyes half-lidded, the hand on the back of her neck is warm, and he is still close enough that she can feel it when his lips quirk in a wry smile. It should set off a warning in her mind, but she becomes distracted enough by another bruising kiss that she fails to notice when his fingers dip down the armour at the back of her neck as he grabs her by the cuirass. It takes a second to pull her away from him, before he spins her on her heel and bodily _throws_ her to the floor.

Wind rushes past her, and Kassandra lands two seconds later than she thinks she should. The blue and white marble floor smacks when she lands on it, the cold of it immediately seeping through her skin, and Kassandra has to take a moment for the fog of confusion to clear.

The distant sound of ocean waves crashes from all around her, and there is absolutely no sign of the Underworld or it’s errant leader in sight. When she looks up, Poseidon is looking down kindly at her from his elegant throne, one well-groomed eyebrow raised in something that could almost be amusement.

* * *

Herodotos is old and weary when she lands in Thurii, and it gives her a painful reminder that she will likely witness everyone she has ever loved wither before her and die. Ikaros had been the first, flying down to her one calm evening on the deck of the Adrestia and nestling in close, the soft feathers on his skull tickling beneath her chin. Kassandra had stroked his feathers and hummed a tune as usual, only to feel the grief crashing down on her when an hour later the eagle did not take flight, and she realised the grip of his talons on her forearm had slackened.

Nikolaos had followed after, mercifully only a year prior to this journey, but the signs of age creep ever on for the members of her family. It is becoming increasingly obvious that Hebe is keeping her firm in her grasp, sheltering her from time itself. Alexios and Stentor look like her older siblings, not her younger, and Kassandra has had to begin lying about her age to new acquaintances.

But Herodotos seems happy to see her, when she steps off the Adrestia with Alexios and Barnabas in tow. She banishes the negative thoughts from her mind, content to wander the market with her brother whilst Barnabas and Herodotos do their own catching up first, the former relating wild tales of their travels at sea whilst the latter regales his friend with stories of his peaceful retirement in Thurii.

Alexios picks up a pretty bracelet for Myrrine and grunts away a blush when Kassandra teases him for it, then teases her in kind when she remembers to buy Stentor a pot of Italian olives and garlic. She loves it, this domesticity, and it pains her to think that she may have to leave them all for their own good. If the cult returns, if any _other_ cults rise to take their place, her family is endangered if they ever come to understand what her staff _really_ is. Even now she hides it, having mastered the art of shrinking it down and disguising it as everyday objects. Today, it is secured to a very strong metal necklace that she wears beneath her armour.

Later, when Barnabas and Alexios have returned to the ship, Kassandra walks along the darkening beach with Herodotos, their words quiet and heads close as they chat. He is as much a father figure to her as Barnabas or Nikolaos, and there had been a time when she considered herself beyond lucky: to go from no father, to three, had been quite a feat.

“How is your retirement? You’ve dropped off the map since you left me in Piraeus.”

Herodotos smiles at her, giving a small shake of his head. “I had to. My travels were written down, and I had no wish to be commanded to teach some distant Prince their histories. Easier to disappear, and leave doubt to when I took my last breath, I think.”

The words cause a laugh to bubble in her throat, his plan more appealing to her than he can ever comprehend. “A smart plan.”

“And what about you, Kassandra? You have not been the same since we left Thera so many years ago. But now I can see a purpose in you. What prompted you to come here, of all places?”

An ocean wave crashes along the shore, soaking their feet, and Kassandra feels her mouth go dry. He is not wrong, that the events in Atlantis had forever changed her. The knowledge that the staff gave her, along with the information passed onto her by Aletheia, had given her too much of an idea of how her life was going to play out. Forever in the shadows, poking and prodding when necessary, and doomed to live well beyond what even Pythagoras had managed. The Heir of Memories would find _her_ , and she knows it is somehow linked to the spear on her back and the blood in her veins.

“You’re right about Thera. I saw… _so many_ things, Herodotos, and I don’t have the skills to describe them to you. But I came because I wanted you to have this.” She takes the spear and gently hands it to him, and he does not fail to notice the utter dullness of the blade.

“The power this blade once held has gone.” He observes, and Kassandra nods.

“A few months ago it simply…disappeared.” It’s not quite the truth: the power had been absorbed into the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus, meaning that Kassandra could _finally_ hand the spear over. She had heard enough warnings from Aletheia to know not to give the spear to _anyone_ when it still held power, and she knew likewise that her whole life up to handing it over would be scrutinised and picked apart by this mysterious Heir of Memories.

It was why she had stayed away from Atlantis, from the room that led to the simulation chambers, and the secret still hiding within. For his protection and her own, she could not return until the spear was drained of power and safely handed over to Herodotos coated with her blood. She has told no-one about the truth of Hades, has repeated the lie in her mind that _it wasn’t real_ , if only to throw off any interlopers in her skull.

“I am honoured that you would gift this to me.” Herodotos is sincere, his voice grave as if he truly understands the gravity of what she is trusting him with.

“Oh, one more thing-“ Kassandra reaches out, wrapping her fingers around the still-sharp tip before squeezing tight and wrenching her hand away. Herodotos takes a step back in alarm, as Kassandra watches her blood drip down the blade. This _should_ be it, she knows, the last bit of her life that the Heir will be able to see. How she knows this, she will never be able to explain, merely that the _Staff_ knows it to be so and so does she, right down to her bones.

The moment the blade had sliced open her fingertips, she was freed.

“Do me a favour - _don’t_ clean that.” She pays him little heed as she quickly bandages her fingertips up, and when she finally looks at him she bursts out laughing.

Herodotos looks like the idea of not cleaning the blade is disgusting, and his expression is an interesting mix of awe at being given the spear, and utter horror at having watched her harm herself with it. The awe wins out, however, as he almost _sees_ the burden on her shoulders lifting just a little.

“I hope, Kassandra, that whatever you have been holding yourself back from, you will no longer be so cautious about confronting it.”

“I won’t.” They’ve doubled back towards her ship, and the Adrestia’s blue and white sails are barely visible in the low evening light. Herodotos turns to her, both aware that this is likely their last goodbye, and Kassandra allows him to embrace her. If her embrace is much tighter than it has ever been, and if his is much weaker, neither of them mention it.

“Live well, Herodotos. Enjoy the peace.”

His smile is warm, but far too knowing.

“Live long, Kassandra.”

* * *

Time in the false Underworld rolls ever on, though Hades does not keep good track of it. He spends more than half of it in another deep sleep, though what prompts him to awaken he cannot say. He had spent more time than he will ever care to admit licking his wounds from the fight with Kassandra, including a gruelling two months healing several broken ribs and cursing Aletheia for not putting basic Isu medical supplies in the simulation.

The simulation around him is much quieter these days, as it used to be before the Keeper entered. Many days are spent in contemplation, a war taking place within him on the best course of action to take now that he is no longer needed here. He is so lost in thought, in fact, that he fails to notice Kassandra until she has already been standing in front of him for nearly five minutes.

Instinctively he straightens, resting both arms on the throne and looking up at her with the most blasé expression he can muster. She has her arms crossed, one hand curled beneath her chin as she looks around contemplatively.

“You’ve redecorated.”

Hades leans back in his seat, a scowl on his face.

“I thought the red complimented my eyes better than the black.” Kassandra snorts at that, and watches as the corner of his mouth quirks in the smallest of smiles. With that, she unceremoniously lowers herself so that she is sitting on the steps leading up to the dais, her arms crossed loosely over her knees. Hades has no idea what the fuck she’s even doing here, but he suspects that neither does she.

They sit in a silence for a moment, before he breaks it with a question he is burning to ask. “Why _are_ you here?”

Kassandra takes a moment or two longer to answer, fiddling with the bracelets on her wrist before she gives a weary sigh.

“I learned a lot, in Atlantis. Even about you.” She does not mention her interest is because she was trying, desperately, to _understand_ him. Trying to understand what could have provoked a living person to willingly enter this tiny constructed world for a length of time that she can only barely comprehend. Atlantis had shown her much, advanced technology and a mostly-peaceful way of living that she could not have foreseen in her wildest dreams. She knows, from visions of the staff, that even Atlantis had been rendered unfaithfully, scaled down massively to better fit into her narrow worldview, make it easier to comprehend. The architecture, the technology, the gods-damned _clothes_ , all in reality beyond what even Aletheia had dared to show her.

“There were papers, notes that called you the Mad King, rejecting progress and welcoming destruction. You told me that wasn’t what you were.”

Irrationally, Hades feels anger surging in his chest, fury at the idea of having to defend himself against accusations that he last faced over seventy-two thousand years ago. And to have the question levied against him by her, of all people, as if he’s not been entirely honest about what he is since she figured out what he was.

“They called me Mad King, _Keeper_ , because I did not care for _blood purity_. The progress Eden so championed was because of their experimenting on humans. Poseidon was so admired was due to his rule that humans and Isu live separately, but in peace. He banned experimentation on humans? That privilege had already been given to the fucking _dogs_.” It’s an argument he had been having for decades with the other Isu, being branded immature for not preventing human and Isu offspring and inviting chaos into his realm. And why should he care? Poseidon had outlawed it, and yet the first hybrid child had been born in Atlantis. Eden had still been champing at the bit to get hold of the girl, but all she had brought in kind was rebellion and war. What happened behind the closed doors of private homes in his city was so far beneath him that he considered it none of his business.

It was an attitude that had served him well: in the first wave of human attacks against the Isu, he was not one of their targets. There had been no bombs beneath his throne, no aconite hiding in one of his barrels of wine. And yet, his city had burned all the same. He had thrived on chaos during its lifetime, but failed to anticipate the destruction it could and _did_ wreak.

Kassandra is looking at him contemplatively, her lips slightly pursed and her brows furrowed. He knows her next question, and answers it before she can ask it.

“I welcomed our destruction because no one deserved to win. The fucking sun was going to burn us all, and no one could put their weapons down. Better to let the world burn, and take a chance on who was left standing at the end.” He stands up from his throne at this, agitated, an onslaught of emotions he has not felt in a very long time threatening to consume him. At the forefront is utter frustration. Kassandra holds her hands up in a gesture of peace, blowing air out between her teeth.

“Calm down! I was just wanting to know.”

With the depth of feeling going through him, Hades is torn between wanting to throw her either onto the nearest bed, or off the side of the mountain his palace rests on. He settles for rolling his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose with more force than is necessary if only to ground him to the present. Kassandra leans back on her hands, looking up at him with an expression he can’t identify.

“I was trying to understand the Isu better, even you. But what I learned was worse than the not knowing. You were all heartless, petty _malakes_.”

Hades throws a look at the staff. He has only ever seen it in person before Kassandra on one occasion, nestled firmly in the hands of Hermes himself. When Aletheia had gotten the chance to transfer her consciousness into it, he has no idea, but Hermes _must_ have known what she’d done. Had she done it before, or after, she’d destroyed Atlantis? Everyone had expected her to rule the cycle a failure, that had not been a surprise; the surprise was that she’d destroyed it _permanently_.

Knowing what Aletheia had seen occur in Atlantis, however, he’s not surprised that Kassandra considers ignorance the better option.

“We were flawed.” He acknowledges, clasping his hands behind his back. Kassandra watches him, though the anger at everything she had seen is quick to rise.

“Flawed? I’ve never known a whole city of people be told, _don’t do this and we can have peace_ , but be too prideful to put aside their differences. That fucking mess of a situation was _beyond_ flawed. Was it like that _everywhere_?”

“It was.” He offers little more explanation, knowing that the intricacies of Isu society are so complicated that explaining it would take hours, would require her knowledge of complex technology far beyond the scope of current human capabilities. “You still haven’t answered my question.” Hades points out, turning back to look at Kassandra.

“I’m still trying to decide if coming here is one of my smarter decisions, or if it’s a fucking stupid one.”

“Then humour me. How long has it been?”

She doesn’t need to ask what point of time he is referring to. “Ten years, more or less.”

It is longer than he had thought, but a blink of an eye to those doomed to live long lives. He suspects that she will join him and the handful of remaining Isu in that respect. The years have left their mark on her in the form of new scars, but she has not aged a day.

“I told you once that you didn’t need to stay here, Hades. I’m leaving Hellas, but I need to lock Atlantis before I go. This may be the last chance you have.”

He sits back in his throne, head cocked and that smirk gracing his lips once more.

“Where do you plan on going?”

She shrugs. Mostly her plan is to point her ship in one direction and sail until she reaches a foreign land. “No idea. If you do come though, you might want something to hide the Isu patterns on your arms.” She tries humour, to break the severity of what she’s offering.

“And if I grow bored of you? How conditional _is_ this freedom?”

Kassandra rolls her eyes so far back that she’s briefly convinced she can see inside her own skull. Infuriating is too generous a word! Does she really want to condemn herself to an unknown number of years dealing with snarky remarks and bitchy battles of will? Why? Because of an attraction she can’t quite quell and the pleasant memories of a few fucks before he, quite literally, tried to force her into staying here? She stands up, frustrated, and levels him with the most fed-up expression she can muster.

“ _Malakas_ , you don’t have to spend your remaining time with me, if that’s what you’re asking. Do you want to leave this simulation or not? Yes or fucking _no_?”

The choice is clear, provided Hades stops insisting on winding her up. She has no idea how this will play out, if this is precisely the opposite of what Aletheia intended her to do, if this will be her greatest mistake or the better of her selfish decisions.

Infuriated, aroused against her better judgement, and veering on hopelessness, Kassandra holds her hand out to the so-called God of the Underworld.

Hades takes it.


End file.
